


and all this devotion

by robokittens



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Implied Medical Violence, Religious Guilt, So Many Kinds of Guilt, the misreading of the whole chas situation is frankly the least of my boy's issues rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens/pseuds/robokittens
Summary: Punishment is, he supposes, healing of a sort. A cleansing.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Fingerbang #4





	and all this devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The exclusion of all else](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433893) by [vigilantejam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantejam/pseuds/vigilantejam). 



> yes this is THE dumbest most obvious title but look: it's not a bible verse taken wildly out of context. i'm growing as a person???

From the corner of his eye he can see Des Voeux on the next table over, and he knows he's made the right choice in coming to Erebus. 

Des Voeux is … he is upright. He is conscious, John can see, but it looks tenuous; the heaving of his chest is visible from here. As are the scars that mark his chest, the meat of his arms, neat and clean and deliberate. As is … as is the smile on his face; whatever haze has come over him, he looks content. Very nearly at peace. 

If John were to turn his head, he could see Dr Stanley at his desk. He does not turn his head: not toward Des Voeux, and not toward where Stanley leafs through a heavy tome, its contents as much a mystery as whatever remedy the doctor may have for him. If it is contained within the volume he looks through now: John shudders to think of what horrors must be in there.

Stanley glances up at him, just once; his gaze is impassive as always, but somehow heavier than John would have expected. He swallows, but he does not flinch. The doctor looks away. At his elbow is a leather roll strapped tight; John has seen its contents before, the flash and gleam of knives and scalpels in the low light of the sickbay, but always in the name of healing and never …

Never punishment. That is why he is here: to be punished for his transgressions. Which is, he supposes, healing of a sort. A cleansing.

He takes another deep breath and stares down at where his hands rest on his thighs, forces them out of their knuckled clench and presses the tips of each finger against his trousers, flattens his palms. Stanley glances up again and then, once more, away.

He can hear Des Voeux sigh. It does not sound pained. John wonders: what transgressions have brought him here? He cannot imagine what has demanded such penance, the hashing of scars in his flesh that catch the light, tight and white and healed and or still shining with fresh blood. John hopes … he hopes it will not take so much, to cure him of his own terrible impulses. He hopes it is not a sin in itself to wish that; that it is not vanity, not folly. He does not wish to add that to his tally. 

The turn of pages in Stanley's book echo in the silent room. John can hear every creak of the bed he is sitting on with every anxious shift; every trembling breath that passes through his lips; every beat of his heart in his chest, his wrists, his throat; in every vein that Stanley's knives might pass through to let flow his traitorous blood. 

He closes his eyes, but he can still imagine the peace on Des Voeux's face, and he wonders if it is too much to hope for that sort of benediction.


End file.
